Fruitcake can be a bit divisive. For some it’s barely edible. For others it’s an indelible and necessary part of the Christmas holiday season. If you’re one of the latter, we’d like to encourage you to pick up your fruitcakes from Commercial Bank of Grayson. The bank is selling Benson’s Holiday Fruitcakes again this year, for $15 each, with all proceeds going to Project Merry Christmas.
That program, you’ll remember, works with school resource centers to identify children and families in need and provide them with food, gifts, and warm clothing. It’s a worthwhile cause and one we find so important we want to ask, once again, that you consider supporting them if you haven’t done so already. If you’ve already given to Project Merry Christmas, and can afford to do so again, please consider it.
If you want to pick up one of the fruitcakes – for yourself or the fruitcake lover in your family – you can pick them up in the lobby of the bank building, just like in years past. The process is a little different due to COVID-19 restrictions. You’ll have to call the bank, or go through the drive through, and ask them to come allow you into the lobby or bring the fruitcake out to you. It’s an extra step, sure. However, we think the cause it benefits makes the slight inconvenience of the extra step worth taking.
The children and families it benefits will definitely appreciate you having taken it.
If you still have Christmas shopping to finish, and it includes boots, shoes, or clothing purchases, you can also pick up the fruitcakes at James Family Outfitters in Grayson. When you do your shopping there you can support the local charity and support locally owned and operated businesses.
These small businesses have been the cornerstones of our communities for generations and they’ve always operated on shoestring thin profit margins. Those shoestrings are even thinner and more frayed with the pandemic limiting their business. This is in addition to business that has been lost to big box stores and online retailers over the last couple of decades.
We encourage you to visit places like Rupert’s for your holiday clothing needs, Grayson Sporting Goods for your sports gear purchases, All-American Graphics for personalized items, and all of our local retailers who’ve been hit so hard this year. Remember that a lot of these places, including our local restaurants, offer gift certificates that you can purchase for those hard-to-shop-for people on your list. Walking on Sunshine is another of our service based businesses that offers gift certificates, and we can’t imagine anyone saying “no” to a massage.
Speaking of supporting local businesses and helping your community, you’ll notice a photo spread and ‘thank you’ advertisement from the Olive Hill Chamber of Commerce in this issue. Their “Christmas with the Chamber” event gave out gifts and treat bags to more than 400 teens and children last Thursday. They list all of the local businesses and individuals who volunteered time, money, and resources to make that project a success – even with COVID related distancing restrictions. We encourage you to shop with all of those businesses as well.
If you don’t need anything they offer now, remember what they’ve done for our communities when you do have need, and if you see the business owners out and about be sure to say “thank you” for the work they are doing to make our county a better place to live and raise our families.
Finally, thank you dear reader, for supporting the local businesses you have shopped at, the local businesses you plan to shop at, and for supporting us with your subscription or newsstand purchase. We do this all for you, but we also couldn’t do it without you. We appreciate you being our partners in providing you local news, 52 weeks a year.
Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. And God bless.
